Three Piece Puzzle
by The-MarmaladeCat1
Summary: Dante, Vergil and Trish - We were never two but three.  Set some time post DMC1


**AN:-** Another of the AU-verse I like dabbling in where Vergil recovered in hell post-DMC and Dante brought him back at some point. Set post-DMC1.

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Even at the end with the sky raining black down across our shoulders and the smoke from the burning pits rising to tear up our eyes, we couldn't admit the truth to each other. I reached down a hand to haul my brother to his feet and he pushed it away, grabbing my forearm instead and pulling himself upright. I could smell the blood on him, but couldn't make out where he was bleeding, not that it mattered, not any more. No more time to let the demon blood in our veins do its work, no more time for one last heroic effort. We'd done all that and this was all there was left.

Somewhere in the distance I heard the last of the demon gates break with a sound like Hell's gables snapping, which of course they were. I holstered my guns and shifted my shoulders, the absence of the demon sword's weight across my back like the loss of a limb. Beside me, Vergil swayed and caught himself on the support of his borrowed blade. Black and laced with old Aramaic runes, I didn't want to ask where he'd gotten it from in case it turned out I'd have to be ashamed of him again.

We should have been running, clinging to that last, desperate kick for survival that runs in the veins of every living creature, no matter what pit they've crawled out of. And yet we weren't, because running was never our way and because we were still waiting. Waiting for our other one, the last piece of our strange puzzle.

As the smoke rose around us, cloying and acid with the fumes of Hell, I kept my eyes on the burning Gate and the flames that curled around the black stone. We'd known, the three of us, long before this point, that this was probably going to be the last time. When you're fighting the Prince of Darkness and playing for keeps with the fabric of all the cosmic realms, you reach a point where you can see all the cards on the table and even though some of them are still face down, you've been playing the game long enough that you know what they have to be anyway.

Three in, two out. Better than we'd bargained for. Better than what we'd thought two nights ago while we toasted the plan over a packet of kettle chips and a six pack of beer. But not better than we'd hoped for.

I watched the Gate crumble and I thought of her hair beneath the light of my office, the way it looked golden in that light rather than the white it shone in the sun. I thought of the way she took my hand all those years ago on the day I found out my brother had gone back into Hell and how cool her skin and her eyes had been. She's hard is Trish, and the world's got nothing on her. She may not have come with me to get him back, but she'd never stopped me from going either and she'd waited for me on the outside ready to drag me if I fell and didn't get up again.

And my brother, my brother who watched her with cool eyes that hid his confusion from no-one, certainly not me and not her either. At first I'd thought he wanted her, a woman as gorgeous as her, who wouldn't? But Vergil's always had something in him that I've never understood. It's only through long years of his stupidity that I've grown to be able to at least predict what he'll do, if not why.

He loves her as much as I do, as much as any half demon can. When I'm bleeding on my knees in the dirt because he's put me there again, she's around with a quiet word and a fresh round of ammo for my guns. Damn her, if I'm not fast enough she's gone out to kick ass before I'm even back on my feet. She'll watch and she'll wait and she'll judge and then by hell if she thinks you're being a damned fool she'll sort you out. She did it to him once, and I swear to God it's the one time I've seen him back down.

He never left again without telling me he was going, even if it was just a note on the door in that flowery hand of his.

He loves her, or perhaps he respects her and with him I think it all gets messed up together. Either way, when that bastard web demon from Arkansas came and messed up my job, stole the artefact I'd sweated blood to lay hands on and slapped my ass in celestial chains so pretty they'd make an angel get down on his knees, it only took a word from her to get him on the road and coming after me. He turned up, ice sword swinging and she was there at his shoulder like an angel. I remember the noise those chains made when he cut them with his sword and the way they looked dead in her hands when she picked them up afterwards. Stupid, she'd said. We could have sold those.

My Trish. Our girl.

I watched the gates of Hell burn and I knew that this time was the last time. I would have gone back for her, but the gate was closed and I didn't have anything left to give. No last tricks, no joker to play, no debts owed. No soul left to bargain.

In the end it was Vergil who took my arm and led me away and when I cursed and threw him off he just shook his head and kept on walking.


End file.
